Manitoba expats detail destruction in L.A.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/01/2025 (325 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former Winnipegger Baxter Humby felt like he was driving through a war zone when he returned to his Pacific Palisades, Calif., neighbourhood for the first time since it was ravaged by a wildfire last week.

His family’s home, along with many others in the oceanside area in Los Angeles, was reduced to rubble by an enormous fire that officials say has killed at least nine people and damaged or destroyed about 5,000 structures.

“It was surreal. It was like (the fire) picked and chose which houses were taken,” Humby said. “A whole neighbourhood is gone. I don’t think that it’s sunk in yet.”

Humby, a Hollywood stuntman and actor, and a former kickboxing and Muay Thai world champion, likened the scene to an a movie.

Escorted by police, he drove past mounds of scorched rubble, where homes once stood, and shells of burnt-out cars, while a plume of dark smoke lingered overhead Jan. 9, two days after his family’s condominium was destroyed.

Humby and his wife, Sonja, were emotional while they surveyed the charred remains of the only home their daughters, ages 12 and 14, have known.

Within the rubble, they recovered a ceramic bowl that was in a dishwasher in their kitchen before that floor collapsed into a garage. Humby was incredulous.

“It was like, ‘All right, at least we’ve got something,’” he said.

A tomato plant that was planted by one of his daughters somehow survived the disaster.

Humby, born in the northern Manitoba community of Gillam and raised in Winnipeg, moved to Los Angeles in 1996 to further his professional kickboxing career. He broke barriers in that sport and Muay Thai, competing with a right arm that was amputated below the elbow at birth because it was entangled in his umbilical cord.

These days, Humby is a road manager for former boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard. They were in Dublin, Ireland, for a speaking appearance when the Palisades fire started the morning of Jan. 7.

Humby’s wife and children were not home when flames swept into their neighbourhood. A neighbour rescued the family’s dog before it was too late.

“I was thankful my kids were safe, my wife was safe and the dog was safe,” said Humby, who returned home Jan. 9. “We can replace all that stuff. As long as we’re safe, that’s all that matters.”

Others weren’t so fortunate. Humby knows people who’ve lost friends in wildfires that have been raging in the Los Angeles area.

His wife tried to reach their home before it was destroyed, but Palisades Drive, the only road in and out, was blocked by cars abandoned by drivers who got stuck in traffic gridlock while fleeing.

Former Winnipeg resident Rhos Dyke got caught in a jam on the same hillside road about 90 minutes after the fire started.

His decision to leave came before an official evacuation order and after he watched helicopters dump water on the wind-blown fire.

Dyke described scenes of panic as motorists drove the wrong way or over curbs in a bid to escape the traffic jam on Palisades Drive. Fire trucks went screaming past him while he waited in the jam.

He eventually decided to head home, only to flee again when a mandatory evacuation notice was issued.

Dyke said he zigzagged around fire-scorched cars that were abandoned on the road, while driving through a wall of smoke.

“It was like a blizzard of black. I couldn’t see anything,” he said. “It was pretty spooky, leaving the neighbourhood. It was a blizzard of fire.”

The house where Dyke lives with his wife, Andrea, was spared by the fire, but they are unable to return. He is devastated for those who weren’t as fortunate.

“Most of my friends have lost their homes, and I’m sick about it,” said Dyke, whose job in the tech industry took him to Los Angeles in 1986.

The Manitoban, who spends his summers at a cottage in Victoria Beach, has lived in the Palisades since 1996. Flames destroyed the Dykes’ former home, where they raised their three children.

“That entire neighbourhood is gone,” said Dyke, who is temporarily staying with one of his sons.

The cause of the Palisades fire — one of four in the Los Angeles area — is being investigated. The death toll from the wildfires was at least 25 as of Wednesday morning. Nine were attributed to the Palisades fire.

Humby questioned elected officials’ preparedness or decisions leading up to the disaster. Firefighters could not use the Santa Ynez Reservoir, close to his home, as a water source because it was closed and empty, he noted.

Humby, his wife and their daughters are staying with his mother-in-law, while they try to figure out what’s next for them.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Dan Lett | Not for Attribution

Tuesdays

A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world.

Sign up for Dan Lett | Not for Attribution

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

The couple, who thanked family and friends for support and donations, is filing an insurance claim, but expect it will be a long time before homes are rebuilt.

“It’s probably not a place we’re going back to,” Humby said.

He said the wildfire delivered an important lesson: prepare a kit or bag in case an emergency or disaster strikes.

“You never know when something bad could happen,” Humby said. “This is, hopefully, once in a lifetime.”

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.